Your Lady Yokels have been sitting around the Old Yokel Headquarters pondering whether or not Billy has taken our critiques of his abominable behavior as a challenge to do worse. Maybe, just maybe, he reads our interpretation of what he does and thinks, “You think that’s bad, just wait until I put a bunch of Cub Scouts up on the dais of Winchester Hall and have them hold a Trump/Pence sign!” If that sounds awfully specific, that’s because that is a thing that actually happened. It’s all over Facebook, making the rounds on various pages. We hear that the National Council of Boy Scouts is very upset because this is a clear violation of their guidelines. And,we also have it on good authority that the County Attorney is now looking into whether or not Billy violated any laws. Shame on the scout leader for not being aware of Boy Scout policy. And double, no triple, shame on Billy for not knowing (or more realistically, not caring) that politicking is not allowed in Winchester Hall. Maybe it’s the influence of his hero Donald Trump that is making him lash out. Or maybe he’s just an obtuse ideologue that really doesn’t care about anything other than his Trump agenda. He certainly didn’t consider how this picture would affect the boys in that troop. So, Billy, you can judge beauty pageants like your hero, defend him on the radio by telling us to look at all the skyscrapers, but we here in Frederick County demand a little more from our leaders. Stop being terrible all the time, just stop!
The agenda was all flip floppy tonight because the High Sheriff had other obligations and wanted to speak about the noise ordinance. A few weeks back Sheriff Jenkins was in the house to discuss changes to said bill. His main objective is to change this from a criminal offense to a civil one. The logic being that since the burden of proof for a criminal citation is so hard to reach, issuing a civil citation would allow law enforcement to better deal with this issue.
Well Billy Shreve, our very own dirt bike expert and connoisseur, has oh so many problems. The list of changes he wants to make is long and futile. He even suggests that the county would have to hire a sound engineer to properly deal with this issue. It is at this point that the High Sheriff states that all of Shreve’s amendments are unreasonable. And oh my, my, my is there trouble in paradise? Could it be that aggravation with the legislatin’ style of Billy Shreve has spread far and wide? Tony also jumps on the anti-Shreve train and accuses Billy of playing a game of semantics. In the end, Kirby is the only one who votes for his amendments. At least he still has one friend left.
Kirby’s suggestion that construction starting time be moved to 7 a.m. means the bill needs to be re-written and voted on at a later time.
Back to public comments. Some are still not too happy about the cannabis.
Kirby is sure weird things are afloat in the budget.
County Executive appointments are all good. Has there ever been an explanation as to why Shrelauter refuses to say aye?
Councilwoman Keegan-Ayer tries to clear up the misinformation over the medical cannabis bill. But no matter what she says, there will always be those who hear the big scary word “marijuana” and go absolutely cray cray!
Because of all the scandals and the inability of some of her council members to understand facts, she has decided to lay the bill on the table. Which means that as of today, because it’s the end of the 90 day period, the bill will die. We are so very sad to see this happen. Bud Otis commends the Vice President for all of her hard work on this issue. The most Deplorable of the Deplorables pipes up and yells to Bud:”How were you going to vote on it?” Bud calmly states that the bill has been tabled to which Billy screams, “That’s what I thought!” Now, dear readers, we don’t like to say we hate people. We hate their actions, we think they do really dumb things, we think they aren’t qualified to hold public office, etc., etc. But right now, we HATE Shreve.
And then the other representative in the Shrelauter department apparently mistakenly thought the # signal had been activated.
Calling #KirbyDealauter. (Never.)
It would have been difficult to follow his seemingly wrecked train of thought, had we not had this handy dandy guide from just earlier where Kirby did this Red Letter Editor thingamabob. If you are thinking it’s like Red Letter Christian, it’s totally not like that. Here is a field guide to a fairly typical mantrum from The Red Visaged Kirby.
Of course, Jerry Donald did some fact checking during his public comments. Thanks, Councilmember Donald, for keeping him honest. Or trying, at any rate.
Please let this be quick! This agenda has several council decisions required…
If the regular stuff (Budget Adjustments, Minutes Approval, Appointments Confirmation) is done as is the usual custom, drink a Fast ‘N Furious. If Kirby takes time out to have a tantrum because the fire department’s needs present an opportunity to make a dimwitted point, make a Piece of Mind instead.
Not really. No.
On the Third Reading Calendar the council must decide on the medical marijuana, nuisance noise enforcement, a clean energy bill for commercial property, and a procedure for enforcing county codes with fines. Sometimes the governing process has worked all the kinks out by the time the decision needs to be made, and sometimes at the final hour things get…kinky? No. Not that! All mucked up. Make your wagers on who what holds things up, and drink a Gamble to go with it.
The Frederick County Council workshop on human trafficking really left an impression on the Local Yokel writers’ fret-o-meter. Because of our former BOCC president’s legal issues, we have focused on the sex trafficking aspect of this multifaceted modern day enslavement, while in reality law enforcement has identified issues with labor trafficking as well. At any rate, when we learned that Frederick Community College would be hosting a sex trafficking victim, we wanted to go hear this woman speak.
It was a lot to process. We have a few takeaways to share. People who fall into this are vulnerable in some way from the outset. Their vulnerabilities make them ideal victims. This woman was a 12 year old runaway from Fairfax County. She was having behavior problems, and no one in the community or school system correctly identified the source of the problem as the abuse she was suffering at the hands of a family member. This was one aspect the county cited as a reason the workshop topic was necessary. So that educators in our county receive the appropriate training to stop this in its tracks. And some people made a bunch of noise trying to say this training was some kind of perk for the teachers (this thinking is literally impossible to understand, but it bears repeating because our least favorite school board candidate, Cindy Rose, was a part of that).
Another aspect of the issue involves law enforcement. This young girl was sent to Riker’s at the age of sixteen because she had been abused into submission and would never give her real name, age, or circumstances to authorities. Later in life–it’s truly a miracle she is alive–after escaping this hell, she lost her job due to an extensive arrest record tied to the one set of fingerprints common to all these assumed names. Another part of the county workshop highlighted the need to train law enforcement to ask the right questions and find the right resources. Immediately. This would ensure that victims are not victimized further by a dysfunctional justice system, or the social system as a whole.
And a moment to discuss what an amazing human being we saw speak. Her name is Barbara Amaya. She said someone told her the average life expectancy of someone taken into sex trafficking is seven years. Not only did she return from ten years living this nightmare with just a sixth grade education and somehow cobble together as normal a life as possible–as a parent, a functional member of society, and now someone who writes books, mentors people, speaks in public (in spite of obvious reservations about taking on that role). She is also working with our House and Senate to pass legislation for Safe Harbor and to get the records of sex trafficking victims expunged. Amazing. What a gift she has given to this world out of some truly horrible circumstances.
One thing she was quick to point out is that there is no such thing as child prostitution. If you are having sex with a minor, the only word for that is rape. She was raped dozens of times a day. Let’s take that a step farther, though. If you are having sex with a person of any age, whether you bought the services or not, and someone else is brutalizing that person so that he or she will engage in your commercial exchange of funds for services, what exactly are you doing? Making love? And legalizing prostitution only helps the “customer” avoid punishment for his involvement in this. It incentivizes sex traffickers to find more victims. There really aren’t two sides to this issue. You’re either deplorable or you aren’t. More about that in a second.
It’s been a bee in our bonnet ever since Billy Shreve objected to the need for a human trafficking workshop by running his mouth off without thinking (shocker) and saying that there are groups both for and against this. We know he has a friend who has a history of poor decision making with regard to his sex life. (A friend we feel zero sympathy for when he takes to Facebook to criticize everyone for not being more understanding of his troubles and demons.) Shut up. We don’t know if you know what deplorable means, and we’re pretty sure you think you are using this stupid sign ironically. Even if you don’t know what ironic means–and apparently you don’t, because it sure seems to be totally absent any irony to this clique of writers.
As always, before starting a new poll, we need to close out our last one.
Looks like you think there will be a bonfire at Winchester Hall in the near future.
Just kidding. Sort of.
We hope you all remember the council meeting where Council President’s Otis’ phone rang and everyone was treated to his “Bad to the Bone” ringtone.
That got us thinking. We need your to help us decide what ringtones to assign to each council member and some other locals that we want to set up on our speed dials.
We realize this means you will have to do extra work this week with all these polls, but we think it is important enough to ask you to take the time to complete each one.
We also highly recommend you google the lyrics of any titles of which you are not familiar. WARNING: some of these songs contain lyrics that some may find highly applicable offensive.
At the 7:00 hour we embarked upon our scheduled public hearings. First up on the list was the proposed pilot program for medical marijuana. This is the third incarnation of this bill as there have been lots of concern. And honestly, while some valid questions have been asked, it seems a lot of the outrage is due to misinformation and fear of marijuana. We heard quite a few speakers refer to barbed wire and armed security guards. Something that is not required by the State bill or this proposal. There also seems to be some fear that all agricultural land is going to be turned into pot farms with hippies running wild and drug dealers shooting up the county. Former Sheriff Hagy, who happens to live next to the proposed site, spoke most rationally about the situation. He stated that this particular piece of property had greenhouses on it with a previous owner and it did not change the land from being a farm. Also, from a security standpoint he stated he did not see any substantial problems. Another speaker, who has actually grown medical marijuana, stated that the only security problems he has had is with law enforcement. There was a lot of talk of the evils of marijuana, devaluation of properties and crime. We hope that the Federal Government will sooner rather than later take marijuana off their Schedule I list. For it is a concern for all involved that the Feds could decide to step in. A final decision will be made on October 4th.
Next up on the docket is changes to the noise ordinance. County Attorney Kearney and Sheriff Jenkins gave a presentation to the council about how this needs to be changed. Jenkins argued that his office needs a real tool that they can use. Sheriff Jenkins even went as far to say: “Listen, this is harder to solve than a murder.” Currently, the noise ordinance is unenforceable because of the criminal standard that must apply. The proposed changes will make the 1st offence a civil citation and will expand the list of people who could issue citations. Kirby’s concerned about the hours(7am-10pm) and claims that most people have their kids on the bus by 6:30-7 so who cares if construction starts early? Tony would start at 4:30 a.m. if ya let him! Must have forgotten that only highschoolers get up that early and there’s plenty of people without kids in the school system or without children at all! Then he questions how loud 90 decibels is. The sheriff says he doesn’t know, and we are thinking durh internet! Which Tony finally consults! But as the Sheriff mentioned time and time again it isn’t just about decibels, it’s also about distance of your property from said noise and the length of time the noise is present. There appears to be a problem with people being inconsiderate with their music down county because there were an quite a few people from that area. Another issue is ATV’s and dirt bikes. Not the occasional driver, but those neighbors who decide to set up a track on their property and annoy everyone around them every single weekend. We wish that people would be more considerate of one another for noise pollution is truly unnerving. Remember way back when the American Army got Manuel Noriega to surrender by blasting loud rock music. It can cause anyone to lose their marbles. And since there’s always going to be that jerk we need the Sheriff’s office to have a tool to enforce this ordinance. An interesting fact we learned is that you can actually check out a noise meter from the Sheriff’s office and take your own readings. So, if you are having a problem with an unruly neighbor keep that in mind.
Public comments were limited to the very important problem of fracking. We are fully on these people’s side when we say we would like to see a ban to any and all fracking in our State and County!
After such a long meeting you might expect that it ended with many lengthy tirades from several of our council members. Nope not this night. They were all tuckered out after this marathon meeting. Kirby actual had no comments to contribute. Can you believe it?
Tony managed a short little tirade that even though he is not an accountant and not a lawyer, he is still required to pass budgets and make legislative decisions. Did he not read the job description before running for office? At any rate, even though he is not one of these so called experts, he thinks his opinion is still right and they are wrong. He thinks the charter needs to be rewritten to close the loophole that almost prevented the council from being aware that we sent Charm City’s money back. We’ll see if he works to make that happen.
Billy gave a shout out to MC for keeping the meeting running smoothly and he is looking forward to the noise ordinance workshop.
Jerry really wants all his constituents to contact him if they have positions they want him to be aware of on the issues that were discussed tonight.
Jessica is going to propose that there be a workshop on fracking. Thanks again to all who came out to speak.
MC thanks all that hung in for the whole meeting. She thanked the Independent Hose for their banquet. Thanked Fire and Rescue and Emergency personnel for all they do. Please attend the fair to support our local agriculture. Saturday October 15 at the Public Safety Training Center there will be a household hazardous waste drop off day from 8am – noon. also Frederick Community Health Fair on October 22 at the Frederick Fair Grounds from 9am -3pm. So take your hazardous waste and then get yourself checked out.
Bud expressed his appreciation at being able to attend the 9/11 ceremony that took place. The Seton center open house took place last week. The Sisters there take donations and have a sales center for the purpose of helping the less fortunate in our community. Bud attended the Brunswick Business Breakfast where it was announced that Weis is coming to Brunswick and the town is excited about that. Fix I 270 coalition is coming back and hopefully Montgomery County and Frederick County can work on solving some of our traffic issues. On October 25th there will be a workshop on the Citizens/Montevue report that Shreve has been asking for.
Both Bud and MC scooped Farm Bureau ice cream for FCPS students on field trips to the fair. They both enjoyed it and MC is sorry that she won’t be back another day so that you too can see her fall in the freezer while she tries to scoop.
And that’s a wrap. Phew.
It’s ok Tiger. You can stop hiding your eyes. It’s all done!
Hey so the archived video is 6 and a half hours long. There’s far too much to work with here. Let’s start with the very beginning. A, B, C, Do, Re, Mi, and so forth. Potato. Crackpot.
Kirby mixes it up with the consent agenda, and wants to look at one of the items separately, and that would be this one.
What better time to lose your mind than when your buddy, who’s on hand to talk about noise ordinances, is going to get money he needs? Funny enough, he also is able to confirm that when Jerry Donald makes you seem like you are being dumb and don’t understand how the budget process works, you are in fact being dumb and don’t understand how the budget process works. Awkwarrrrrrrd. Some foreshadowing. They are not d’accord about noise ordinances later, either.
But, being incompetent doesn’t stop him–like the regular Dunning Kruger Effect case study that he is. Making matters worse he is complaining about two different procedures not being the same, just because he needs a platform to showboat his personal issue that they didn’t get paid back for helping Baltimore and wants to somehow vilify Jan (because it is a day ending in Y). All the while, he can’t even figure out when prompted that the procedure he should use would be to make a motion to separate the items on the consent agenda. When M.C. asks if he would like to make said motion, he retorts, “However you wanna do it.” No, not however she wants to. There’s a procedure, you drip. Wasn’t it that procedure was the most important thing in the world? The good news is that all that noise was useless, and everybody got the money they need in the end.
Then we heard from Chief Tom Owens about the need to accept a grant to help staff the volunteer fire stations with career staff. This was very educational. Did you know that sometimes they send an ambulance with 2 people out (since you really can’t have only a driver both driving and attending to the medical condition in the back) and so that leaves a firetruck with only a driver, and often they all take off to a car accident in this configuration when all the equipment is required? Doesn’t that seem a little…anemic. Lewistown doesn’t have staff to operate an ambulance after 6pm, so they don’t and send a back up probably from Frederick, in the event of an emergency (and that does it; personal vow to never move out of a city). Ideally a station with an ambulance and engine should have 5 people so that the whole thing works. TBH this Local Lady was running kids around and listening to the early part of the meeting on the available wifi while chauffeuring kids to activities, and missed the conclusion. However, today’s FNP reveals that this went down as one might imagine. That’s why you need to subscribe: they pay someone to stay the whole bleeding time. And thanks to them we know that the rug that ties the whole room together is that if you need to make a point, what better time than when first responders want grant money paid for by the taxes we all pay, to make itself useful here in our community.
Some Republican members of the council questioned whether the county should accept the grant, citing the higher cost for salaries in the division once the grant runs out.
Who wonders which Republicans? Any hypotheses? Not even curious enough to go consult the archives are you? Neither are we. And also:
After the council’s vote, a group of a dozen firefighters stood in the crowd and cheered.
It sure would be nice if Billy and Kirby had a goal other than causing problems.
It’s time for your favorite Frederick Politics game! There’s a lot on the agenda this evening. We are sure that there will be some grumbling from Shreve’s end about the start time, but we’ll try and block that out. Your Lady Yokel’s are going to leave you with a bingo game this evening. You can decide when to take a drink. With every checked box or when you get an actual Bingo! It’s totally up to you. Also, feel free to interpret the choices very liberally, the exact wording need not apply! Do remember this game is only for entertainment purposes. Billy wants NOTHING to do with our readers.
We had a short workshop tonight! Not a good one, but a short one!
Jerry starts off nicely talking about how we can deal with blighted properties more effectively. And he wants to talk to the State Board of Education about taking teachers out of the classroom to fulfill other positions. He wants to know if these positions are really necessary when we have overcrowded classrooms.
Kirby opens up with talks of plagiarism. We reported on this very issue last night as did Frederick County Fact check. He got an email from someone accusing him of plagiarizing his list. He gets Regan to talk about how they search for legislation and since it’s a talking point and not legislation it doesn’t matter. Uh, okay.
Then he’s off explaining his legislative ideas. Since we already discussed them last night, we aren’t going to rehash the horror. We do feel the need to say something about his anti-union proposal though. We are going to postulate that perhaps Kirby isn’t aware of the history of labor in our country. Perhaps he is ignorant of the fact that our benevolent Titans of Industry didn’t give more than a rat’s ass about the workers in their factories.
That would be the only explanation we will accept as to why he said that since they’ve been doing this in the South they’ve been able to produce much better products. Jerry does take him to task on this, but of course he can’t answer any of his concerns. His stock answer was: “I don’t want to legislate that.” Oh no, he only wants to legislate getting RID of the union. He doesn’t care what the employer does next. We want to help Kirby become better educated. Especially since rumors are bouncing off the mountains that he’s going to run for CE. Therefore, Kirby please go to Amazon and order this book, if it’s too many words, would you at least read the Wikipedia entry on the History of the Labor Movement in the US? Pretty please?
Kirby and Billy had a meeting of the minds and decided that they want to eliminate all VEIP stations. Why, because private industry wants a little bit of that emission cash. Why wait in line at the VEIP station when you can wait for an appointment at your local car mechanic? I wonder if the price will go up? Hmmm.
Jessica wants legislation to help parents find drug treatment for their kids. And why do we only have two nice things to talk about tonight?
New business is last on the agenda. Billy must have missed Jan’s press conference because he’s in a tizzy about the nursing home again. And here’s the part where he acts like a jerk. After using the term “smoke and mirrors” about 5 times…
…he takes a turn on Bud. He starts shouting at him for not bringing this up on the agenda. Bud says that now the deal is done he will. Billy accuses him of stalling and doing everything the County Executive instructs him to do. He then shouts, “You don’t do anything!” Bud calmly replies that is his opinion and he is certainly entitled to it. To which Billy screams that he can ask a lot of people. Bud ends the meeting and we are very sorry Mr. Otis, that you had to put up with such antics on your birthday! We hope you can at least have a nice birthday dinner.
frederick local yokel 